Hirobun

In Kyoto, there is a highly-rated (shoutout to Yelp) nagashi-somen restaurant called Hirobun. Somen are chilled wheat noodles that are typically enjoyed during the summer heat. The difference between somen and nagashi-somen is nagashi-somen is sort of like a game where you have to catch the noodles as they slide down the bamboo shoot with water. Hirobun is actually pretty far out of the way from the main area of Kyoto, however the surrounding area is so beautiful. It's located up in the mountains and there's a large river running through the middle of it. When you get off the bus, it's about a 10 minute walk up to get to the actual restaurant. Then you have to put your name down for a reservation and pay up front (I think it was $30 per person). I got there with my friends around 12:30 and they had an estimated wait time of 1.5 hours with 50 groups ahead of us. So while we were waiting we walked around the area and looked at the different shops. We went back after about an hour... and there were still 30 groups in front of us. We ended up having to wait a whopping 3 hours for da noods. We had read online that you would get 15 minutes to eat noodles but maybe because it was getting closer to closing, we only got 10 minutes to eat -____- But honestly that was the most stressed out I've ever been eating something. After the first couple bundles, the 3 of us were sick of the taste, and the water from the noodles had diluted the broth so now we were just eating plain old noodles. Since we were getting sick of the taste, we started eating the noodles slower...BUT THE NEW NOODLES JUST KEPT COMING. So as we were miserably shoving the tasteless bundles of carbs into our mouths, we were yelling at each other to take the fresh noodles because we wanted to get our moneys worth. Definitely not worth the wait for us, but maybe if we got there earlier the wait would have been shorter?

Peep at the group number... We were group 92...

The provided broth and warabimochi for dessert

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